For Same-Sex Couples, Equality in the Hospital

For Same-Sex Couples, Equality in the Hospital
By TARA PARKER-POPE
Copyright by the New York Times
April 19, 2010, 4:48 pm
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/04/19/for-same-sex-couples-equality-in-the-hospital/?th&emc=th


For people in same-sex relationships, aging carries an added burden of anxiety: the fear that in a health crisis their partner might be excluded from making medical decisions, even visiting their bedside.

Consider Tim Hare, 63, a retired architect in Easton, Pa., with a history of heart problems. He and his partner of 34 years, Earl Ball, were legally married in Canada in 2003. But whether hospitals and health care authorities in this country would recognize them as family members is an open question, even with President Obama’s order last week extending hospital visiting rights and decision-making authority to same-sex partners.

“This is a real fear everywhere I go,” Mr. Hare said. “I have been to a lot of specialists lately, and I look and think, ‘Wait till they hear the “husband” word.’ ”

Advocates and experts say that Mr. Obama’s memorandum to Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of health and human services, is just a first step — that its success will depend on how vigorously it is carried out and enforced. It was prompted, in part, by the plight of Janice Langbehn, a social worker in Lacey, Wash., whose partner of 18 years, Lisa Pond, collapsed with an aneurysm during a Florida vacation in February 2007 and was taken to a Miami trauma center, where she later died. Although Ms. Langbehn was traveling with paperwork giving her legal rights during a medical emergency, she tried in vain for hours to persuade hospital officials to let her and the couple’s adopted children visit Ms. Pond.

Many hospitals around the country have adopted policies recognizing the rights of domestic partners, but how those policies are enforced often depends on the nurse or administrator in charge. Last year, the Human Rights Campaign Foundation, a gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender civil rights group, and the Gay and Lesbian Medical Association released an equality index for 166 of the nation’s hospitals.

The groups reported that about a quarter of the hospitals did not have policies to protect patients from discrimination based on sexual orientation. Even at hospitals with antidiscrimination policies, there were several cases of same-sex partners excluded from the bedside of a partner or adopted child.

In Bakersfield, Calif., for instance, in a state where domestic partnership is recognized, only the biological mother was allowed to stay at the bedside of a child running a high fever. Her partner — the child’s adoptive mother — was told to stay in the waiting room, even as fathers and mothers were allowed to visit their children together.

Several years ago, while Mr. Hare was being treated for a heart attack, his cardiologist noticed his wedding ring and offered to bring his wife in from the waiting room. When he explained that he was married to a man, the cardiologist broke hospital rules to allow his partner, Mr. Ball, a chaplain at a different hospital, to visit him.

“The reality is that it’s still up to interpretation,” Mr. Ball said. “How they’re going to respond depends on what nurse is in charge and what their take is.”

Josh Thomas, 58, battled administrators at a Cincinnati hospital when his partner of eight years, Jack Thomas Dawson, was being treated for severe vasculitis, an inflammatory disease that led to his death three years ago. Even though he had the necessary legal documents, Mr. Thomas said, hospital workers refused to keep him informed of Mr. Dawson’s condition. Mr. Thomas, who at the time was the editor of a gay newspaper, said he was finally given access to his partner’s medical information after threatening to hold a news conference in front of the hospital.

“We had all of the paperwork that any gay couple could have in the State of Ohio,” he said. “They said, ‘You’re not family.’ ”

John Berry, 59, an artist in Seattle, had exchanged rings with his partner of 10 months and the two were planning a New Hampshire wedding when the partner suffered a stroke. The couple had not completed their mutual health care proxies, and Mr. Berry was banned from further visits after he and a doctor clashed over treatment. Later, the patient’s father took over his care and relocated him to another state. Mr. Berry hasn’t seen his partner for two years.

“Everybody knew we were a couple, even the grandmother,” he said. “Had we been able to have his voice expressed in the hospital, none of this would be happening right now.”

Even in states that recognize domestic partnerships, the fear of being denied access to a loved one in a medical emergency is always there, said Helen Mendoza, 46, a documentary filmmaker in South Pasadena, Calif., who married her partner of 17 years in 2008, when the state still allowed same-sex marriage.

“As we age and encounter health problems, it’s that extra concern,” said Ms. Mendoza, who has two children with her partner, Pam Privett. “Do I have my papers in order? Will the family structure be honored by a hospital or nursing home? It’s a real and present concern that we have in the back of our heads all the time. It weighs heavy.”